Overview of the Mars PCM

The Mars PCM

In a nutshell, the Mars Planetary Climate Model is a General Circulation Model (GCM) of the Martian atmosphere.

Reference Versions of the Mars PCM

Bla bla bla... mention here the various configurations? (GCM, 1D, Mesoscale)

GCM version 5

This is the version of the model that was used to generate Mars Climate Database version 5.3. In practice, the main features of these simulations are:

• a horizontal grid (longitudexlatitude) resolution of 64x48, with 49 vertical layers (when including the thermosphere)
• a dust cycle where column dust opacity is imposed via input dust scenarios.

GCM version 6

This is the latest version of the model that was used to generate Mars Climate Database version 6.1. In practice, the main features of these simulations are:

• a horizontal grid (longitudexlatitude) resolution of 64x48, with 73 vertical layers (when including the thermosphere)
• a dust cycle where column dust opacity is driven by dust scenarios but via injection of rocket dust storms and the use of mountain slope dust re-injection parametrization.

Getting started

Most likely you will want to install and run the model, then you should start with this page.